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Did you know cows poop 15 times per day? The average adult cow produces about 65 pounds (30 kg) of manure daily. That adds up to about 12 tons (11,000 kg) of poo each year. Per cow. I guess this shouldn't be surprising, considering cows stand around eating pretty much all day long. Fortunately, all that manure makes for excellent fertilizer. Of course, this depends on the breed, sex, and size of the animal, but these numbers are reasonable averages. Cows also produce copious amounts of urine. On average, a cow releases 3.5 gallons (13 L) of urine each day. It helps to wrap your head around this if you imagine filling up thirteen 1-liter soda bottles with urine. And let's not forget about milk. An average dairy cow produces about 7.5 gallons (28 L) of milk per day. Interestingly, if a cow was only producing enough milk to feed a calf, it would need only one gallon per day. Due to selective breeding, the average yearly milk production for a single cow has increased from 233 gallons in 1880 to 2,825 gallons in 2022. Um, that's twelve times more milk per cow. 
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Did you know koalas sleep 18 to 22 hours every day? Seriously, that's more than a human teenager sleeps. I know, because I used to be one... a teenager, not a koala. Why do koalas sleep so much? Because they are always working really hard. On the outside, it may not look like they're working hard (in fact, they seem kind of lazy), but they are definitely working hard on the inside. Here's why. Koalas are fond of living in eucalyptus trees and eating eucalyptus leaves. In fact, that's pretty much all they ever eat. They eat more than a pound of eucalyptus leaves per day. The problem is, eucalyptus leaves are toxic, and they have a huge amount of fiber and very few calories and nutrients. So, a koala's body has to work really hard to break down the toxins and extract nutrients from the leaves. This, of course, can be done while they sleep. And because it takes so much energy to digest their food, they might as well be sleeping to keep from using up what little energy they are gaining from digestion. Oh... one more thing. I mentioned above that koalas only eat eucalyptus leaves, but that's not completely true. When they are really young (and called joeys), they eat their mother's poop. This is after they stop feeding on milk and before they start eating leaves on their own. Technically, though, because the mother only eats eucalyptus leaves, I guess the mother's poop is eucalyptus leaves too.  |
Stan's Cogitations
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March 2023
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